Jump to content

LarryO

Member
  • Posts

    428
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by LarryO

  1. Actually I've been using 2022 for 4 months now, I had forgotten to up date my signature. I'm with you in that observation regarding Tekla and naming. I too think an assembly should have a new identity once all of its parts are combined into a new whole object, but for some the cliché is their modus of operandi, "that's the way its always been done. Follow the example it is the correct way of doing things!" It is a good thing that there are visionaries who are not constrained by the past. We only need to remember the past so we don't repeat our mistakes. ( another apt cliché )
  2. This package has a few inconsistent practices. Some of the parts drawings list only the thickness of the material whereas others list the overall dimensions in addition to the material thickness. The page below illustrates a technique used by the other software which I have faked here whereby one instance of p22 which is part of hidden sub-assembly bp20 was chosen to be labeled as CP1 while the whole assembly is CP1.(see detail 6, FRONT ISO) I believe the thinking is that all other named parts are attachments to CP1 as part of the final configuration of CP1. So this assemblage of parts has at its root a part that is the parent or base of the final product. The construct in Vectorworks being a symbol for the assemblage of parts and a means to identify an track the subparts of the assemblage. Therefore one part becomes a conflict with the assemblage's name, an aspect I am still trying to work through in my head if there is a solution using the basic elements of VWs. On page p20 the material that would appear in the materials list on page CP1 is listed under the Mark (the part id) and Quantity (currently manually tracked) tag and the length of material required in this instance is 660. On page p22 (which is also the material required for CP1 in addition to all the parts) is shown as a complete description of the material required. but the reality is that the material description is 6.4mm plate and the amount is 172x165. For now we are ignoring the holes which would be required information to make the leap to estimating take offs. It will be many years before industry provides enough data in their design documents to need a place to store the manufacturing/labour data in order to facilitate estimating. The modelling layer is called "Canopy" the presentation layer for the parts is called...."parts". The latter would not be necessary if Viewports had the ability to display symbol definitions. I probably should have stripped out the incomplete stair portion of the file but didn't. 521188469_9039Lot4ArkRd.vwx
  3. What the shop really wants is to mimic Trimble's Tekla where the software generates and tracks parts' detail sheets and materials lists. Manual implementation has been rigged for errors from the start. A copy paste of a text error takes forever to ensure all instances get found and corrected, so we are currently still manually counting and aggregating materials for purchasing instead of generating materials lists from the presence of the objects in the 3d drawing environment.
  4. I was given these links to implement a bill of materials after declaring that I couldn't track materials using named objects and named symbols because the implementation here wants one of the items within the symbol to be the base object for an assembly of the same mark name. http://app-help.vectorworks.net/2016/eng/VW2016_Guide/Annotation/Creating_Detail_Bubbles.htm#XREF_29579_Creating_Detail http://app-help.vectorworks.net/2016/eng/VW2016_Guide/Annotation/Creating_a_Parts_List.htm#XREF_75530_Creating_a_Parts http://app-help.vectorworks.net/2016/eng/VW2016_Guide/Annotation/Creating_a_Bill_of_Materials.htm
  5. We have been wanting to generate materials lists from the objects used in a project. I was looking at the arrangement in VW and the data is required to be stored in detail bubbles. The list being generated from data attached to a detail bubble and not data attached to the items of an assembly or project. If population of the material's lists were to be automated, how would one exclude duplicate detail bubbles used to identify the same object(s) that are being viewed in another viewport? One would have to create a detail bubble for every instance to get correct quantities, would they not? If a characteristic such as material designation or length changes does the detail bubble automatically track this, or does it require a manual change in addition to the change occurring in the instance of the object? I'm reluctant to go down the rabbit hole of introducing hidden data that requires manual tracking and updating, it is already an error prone process to manually maintain notes that one has in front of one's face. Is there any insight into successful implementations of generating parts data from custom symbols representing items which are often one or two off instances? Larry
  6. When printing a set of sheets (not layers) can the 0,0 origin of all sheets be placed in the lower right corner regardless of page size. I don't want this to affect the origin of the layers though. I want the user origin and layer origins to remain aligned, otherwise it is simply too difficult to track and get reliable paste in place results, especially for 3d constructions. Bluebeam has a feature whereby it can find page "labels" for searching, referencing and hyper-linking details from tags and but it measures from the pdf origin which my VWs places at the centre of each page. So different sized pages in the same set have the page number at different distances from the centre of page because they are all relative to a titleblock placed in the lower right corner in my situation.
  7. I attach two screen shots here. The original VW2022 file generated correctly. And the same file when rendered in VW2023. <edit: dashed hidden line background rendering and hidden line background rendering>
  8. In my setup it always seems to appear over the pull down menus blocking their use until pulled out of the way.
  9. Hidden render mode is generating stray/erroneous lines from this trimmed framing member. The untrimmed member also has a glitch as seen in the second image. VW2023. Also smoothing angle fails to remove curvature line(s) in standard viewport views. Smoothing angle of 5° usually works with standard steel shapes but I am trying to update our template drawing to utilize the framing member tool for hopefully better 3d manipulation. Although the missing data sets that are generated by the steel shapes might make me change back to them. Looking at a W250x32.7 with the top flange coped and holes for the bolts. Two glitches in the rendering of the subtracted solid, left and enlarged above. And one from the basic framing member, right above. Changing units accuracy doesn't fix this.
  10. I've shared this in the resource area for anyone interested. Its been a progressive development of mine for over ten years. Plugin and VW file Set in VW2022. Unlikely to be any further development, I will not be able to afford the subscription model, but everything is unlocked. Larry
  11. Here is a titleblock manager that relies upon an instance of the title block being on a specified sheet. It uses the data you enter in that titleblock to fill in the blanks of all subsequent pages and it also uses the sheet name and number to populate two fields unique to each sheet. There is a manual revision counter that goes up to 94 and down to E. You can set a date that doesn't change on specific sheets. It requires you to toggle the revision or date function to update the date field to the current calendar date or any changes to sheet name etc. There is also a note option which is currently populated with finish options that can be changed to show other information by rewriting the pull-down data set in the plugin. You can also change the name of the default sheet that the manager looks for by changing the text stored in the plugin string data #3000. The default sheet's name and the string text must be identical. Only the first instance of the plugin on the default sheet will be recognized as the parent data set for all the other sheets. If the first is deleted the manager will look for another but failing that if no instance is present or no sheet exists with the specified name then the management script will not function. The script uses the term GRAST to identify the primary instance so that NAME will not be available to use for other items/objects. Have fun. Larry TBDataManager.vso BasicTitleBlockSetup_4_TBManager.vwx
  12. I should perhaps clarify that the symbols read and move in the x/y/z plane as expected. The framing member inside the symbol will still be using plan view and responding to y movements that translate to z plane movements outside of the symbol's environment. There is a little more cut and paste trickery required or redrawing of framing members to have them rotated onto the z-plane and elevating with changes to the z elevation within the symbol's environment to create corresponding z-plane changes outside the symbol drawing environment.
  13. Ah Ha! GOT IT! Do a solid operation for each or all framing member(s) (add/subtract/intersect) and the symbol(s) will revert to 3d. At which point the symbol(s) can be rotated/tilted off the y-plane and onto the z-plane, after which the solid operation can be undone and the symbol(s) will return to being hybrids. The elevations now read as z instead of y.
  14. Unfortunately that doesn't look like it will happen. My employer refused to sell me their parked perpetual license. He would rather see me tied to the office to use the current version than working a day or two per week at home easing into retirement. I'm nearly sixty now and there is no way I could afford the cost of VW subscription(s) to toy part time with my limited programming skills creating things that couldn't come close to covering their costs. It'll be cheaper to build bird houses, read books, play Civ and dream about what could of been if I were rich enough to throw money at everything that stimulated my mind.
  15. Is there a trick to tilting up a truss or elevator shaft that was laid out in plan view using the framing member tool? Essentially rotating about the x-axis to place the elevations on the z-plane instead of the y-plane. The framing member is used inside a symbol in both cases so that it can be replicated, but the 2d linear element of the framing member is changing the symbols into hybrid objects. Is there a means to prevent the 2d element from being generated so the framing members and the symbol remains 3d until the elements are tilted into position?
  16. That actually seems to have the ability to do what I have wished for many years. I cannot seem to find their legal page though to know who the developer is and their legal address. Can't be buying stuff from North Korea (or China/Russia now) you know. Imagine the havoc a product like this could cause if it has a back door with nefarious intent.
  17. Suppliers and academia convert the ASTM A572-50 imperial size of W14x48 to W360x72 but the tables used in VW2023 have it as W360x71. Wide flange steel beam standard possibly also known as A992.
  18. That arrangement shows a lot of promise. The guys arms are in a more natural relaxed position. He will not be bumping into the keyboard nearly as much as one would with the typical extended keyboards that are ship with computers nowadays. He has enter and correction keys on both sides of his desktop so he need not lose control of the mouse to press the most used key (backspace) on the keyboard. As opposed to this layout also on their web site which shows this man's right elbow fully extended to manipulate the mouse and remain free form the interference of the keyboard's numpad extension. I would be surprised if this doesn't cause muscle fatigue in the right arm or forearm. I still feel that a tablet screen of similar size to the keypad they have developed with multiple pages of menus including contextual options harking back to the old overlay concept of the original magnetic drafting tablets only with coded virtual buttons; combining image based glyphs and touch screen tech to present a relevant menus and options; a swipe this way or that presenting the users frequent graphical menus or keys, swiping being similar to how the android operating systems' extended desktop is flipped or changed.
  19. I would suspect that this is just a matter that they have not yet coded in the ability of the joining member to select/remember which axis that it will be aligning with in the other member. In the case of joining to a ridge or valley the top centre axis of the joining member would need to switch to alignment with the top edge axis of the valley or ridge member. Which is really just incorporating an offset from the bearing member's primary axis; in this case half the member width. In the case of a steel member this would of course be further impacted by the connection node design, that node could also impact the offset or wind up being an intermediary object between the two elements. In the obvious sense that would be one or two steel angles bolted or welded between the members or a less obvious modeled construct that is solid subtracted or added into the junction, like a knife plate and flange coping with holes for bolting. I am simply happy that after more than ten years to finally witness development to the structural steel components. It will take a bit of trial and error on the part of the programmers to code this effectively. I don't imagine that any of them have assembled steel to gain grades for their C+ coding classes. Autodesk has always had the upper hand because engineers could only turn to products other than VWs to do their design work. VW users would have to import or redraw everything. And we all know the joys of importing other file formats. Try importing something from Tekla.
  20. At this point we do our best not to embed objects into more than one sub-assembly. We take an HSS cut some holes in it and then add the components onto the steel. That becomes a symbol and each component is created as a symbol. Occasionally the hss assembly is used in multiple constructions which need to be grouped or contained within another symbol level. But the reality is that the KISS principal is a strong influence when we inevitably need to adjust these complex structures to suit the measurements that come back from the build site. The symbols help maintain continuity between the object as it is portrayed in the building model with the same object that laid out on another design sheet in a way that it can be presented easily for the shop to understand and build it. I'm currently using VW2022 with its glitchy image regeneration issues. Sounds like I should get that upgrade done sooner rather than later, especially considering that they report there are improvement to the structural tools in VW2023.
  21. I'm trying to find basic entities such as Square 3d HSS which are incorporated into assemblies on a primary modelling layer. Basically to extract the standard size of the piece and its length and determine the number of times that part is used throughout all the assemblies present on the primary modelling layer. The trouble I am encountering is when an HSS is within a symbol because it is a frequently used part in all the assemblies present. The create report tool doesn't report any of the materials used within those symbolized parts. The assemblies themselves are symbols so that they can be presented individually on other layers as well as the primary modelling layer. Any thoughts on how the reporting function can be set to delve into the symbols embedded into the parent symbols?
  22. @Mark Aceto Where pray tell did you find that arrangement? It is a minor improvement over the typical extended keyboard now "standard" configuration, but that broken keyboard pretty much forces two-handed operation. Being able to select the keys with one hand and not need to release the mouse to achieve a multi-button operation is preferable, more ergonomic. Still a gigantic width that could get in the way of operating the mouse, IMHO
  23. I may in left field here in my understanding but I think I had a similar problem with a plugin that I built to draw pickets in a railing. I had to separate the drawing of the pickets from the collection of the points I required for the initial placement of the picket plugin. I used the predefined linear plugin with an additional point parameter as the base plugin to do all the work and used a tool script to gather the initial three definition points and insert them into the instance of the linear plugin's parameters that the tool script places into the document. Manipulation of the linear plugin afterwards is fully handled by the plugin's script. The tool script is only required to initialize the parameter values of the initial placement of the plugin.
  24. Yeah, I wonder why it is that they short change the buyer 4oz when you buy a pint there? I can't imagine that shrink-flation 🤑 was a good business concept back when they enacted those standards. Especially when it seems their pints are already watered down. 🤣🤣
  25. I never noticed before that VW2022 offers 'cubic gallons' as a measure of volume.
×
×
  • Create New...